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Early balders need to take care of their prostate
If you're a long-term and heavy user of testosterone, trenbolone or other steroids, you are more likely to develop prostate cancer. At least, that's what doctors suspect. And if their suspicions are confirmed, then men who go bald at a young age should take note, going by a study done by French cancer researchers, published in February 2011 in Annals of Oncology.
Prostate
When the Good Lord designed the male of the species, he assumed that men would not live a long life. And he was right. Our ancestors spent their lives chasing mammoths, climbing dangerous mountains and fighting battles – so they didn't often reach a ripe age. The Divine Engineer would never have guessed though that men would eventually exchange the wilds of nature and bloody battlefields for suburbia and open-plan offices.
The biggest construction fault in the male is in his underbelly. This is where his prostate is located, a gland that makes seminal fluid. The prostate keeps growing throughout a man's life, and especially when influenced by androgenic hormones. Nearly all men develop cancer of the prostate. But there is perhaps one way for men to prevent themselves from developing prostate problems: by making sure that the prostate grows as slowly as possible, so that the cancer develops as late as possible. That way they'll die before the cancer manifests itself.
That's where the problems start for chemical athletes. Many of the muscle-building substances that athletes use also stimulate the growth of the prostate, and with it the chance of developing prostate cancer. Doping experts have their doubts about the last part of the reasoning, though, and they have a point. Although hundreds of thousands of men shoot themselves full of androgens every day, there are surprisingly few case studies reported by doctors that have discovered prostate cancer in steroids users. We know of only one.
Study
The researchers asked 388 men with prostate cancer whether they were bald, and if so, the age at which they started to lose their hair. He asked the same question to 281 men without prostate cancer. He used the form reproduced below. The subjects had to fill in the age at which they reached the various stages of baldness.
Results
As you can see, the men with prostate cancer were already bald at the age of twenty twice as often as men without prostate cancer. Early balders are therefore a risk group when it comes to prostate cancer. It might be worth bearing this in mind when deciding whether or not to take a course of steroids.
Source:
Ann Oncol. 2011 Aug;22(8):1824-7.
More:
Lancet: link between prostate cancer and steroids in bodybuilder 25.06.2010
Animal study: vitamin C protects prostate of steroids users 09.10.2009
Soya milk reduces chance of prostate cancer 22.08.2009
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